By: Bryce Steiner
The 2016 election brought about dramatic accusations across the spectrum of news media in this country. It is believed by some that Russia influenced the election, helping Donald Trump to win the electoral vote necessary to take the presidency.
Ohio has one of its biggest choices this year in “Issue 1” at the election polls. If you haven’t seen ads or info regarding this issue you will soon.
You may ask, “How is Facebook influencing this?” The answer is Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. The funding and the promotion for this bill is over 90% funded by out of state organizations and individuals including Zuckerberg.
Reading this bill, it sounds like it wants to help the courts and the addiction issue, but in essence will change the constitution to remove punishment for drug dealers. It would be similar to graduating students from school, even though they don’t meet minimum requirements, just to keep numbers up for federal funding.
Legalizing some drugs in small amounts may actually be a benefit to the system. Small amounts of marijuana is less of a charge than a traffic violation, such as speeding, now. That change might make sense. But the issue is it will effectively blanket change for all of these drugs from a Felony F4 or F5 to a Misdemeanor with no jail time. Since marijuana punishment is already low, it might be beneficial. It is not just marijuana though that would be reduced punishment. It includes changing the highly dangerous drug, fentanyl, to a misdemeanor if they possess less than 20 grams. Do you know how much 20 grams of fentanyl is? It’s enough to kill 10,000 people according to the Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor. Fentanyl is about 50-100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than many forms of heroin. “Two milligrams of pure fentanyl, which is about the size of about four grains of salt, is enough to kill an average adult.” according to a Florida Police Department.
So far this issue backed by the “Yes on Issue 1” campaign has received $4.5 million of the $4.8 million from OUT OF STATE, with Mark Zuckerberg being a major, if not THE major funder to promote this. That is over 93% of the funds coming from outside the borders. Why?
I highly recommend watching Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor here: http://www.ohiochannel.org/video/state-of-the-judiciary-address-september-13-2018
Solutions to the opioid drug crisis in Ohio is not going to be cured by changing the law to only remove the punishment. The drug court model that has been implemented throughout the county and the state has been very successful, but Issue 1 will cut the legs out from under this program by not allowing the punishments for failure to comply.
Depending on the county, 70-100% of the children that have been taken away from parents is specifically because of the drug crisis. These children do not have good homes because of the drug addictions. How will lessening punishment make for better homes for these children? The answer is simple – it won’t! It will only aggravate the situation with more overdoses and more deaths, and many of them children, than ever before.
Even if Issue 1 is passed the federal laws will trump the state’s leniency. The issue with the federal charges for drugs is there won’t be a Drug Court that will help people get off drugs.
So, you have to decide: Do you want even more drugs in your community, with police being heavily restricted to do anything about it, or, do you want your addicted friends and family to get the treatment they need?
